“She won’t let me set up till tomorrow. She sent everything back down here and locked the ballroom. She told me the arrangements look pathetic, and she intimated to your father that I’m overcharging, padding the bill, and possibly cheating him and the client, and she can get better flowers and a better deal from a friend. Your father called me about it,” Jan said with tears in her eyes. She had never had a single problem in her eight years at the Vendome. Till now. Thanks to Hilary Cartwright. She started to cry then and blew her nose.
Heloise hugged her and tried to console her. “Papa is probably just in a bad mood. I saw him with a ton of bills on his desk. He’s always crabby when that happens.”
“No, he believed her,” Jan said, crying again, although she was one of the most respected florists in New York, and had won several awards for her work in the hotel.
Things got worse the next day. Hilary got in a full-scale battle with Jan before the wedding. She shouted at the waiters and had them reset the tables. She ran the ballroom with an iron fist. She got good results, but she had an aggressive confrontational style no one used at the Vendome. Sally was always kind to everyone and got great work out of them. Hilary was hell on wheels and had people running and crying no matter how sweet she looked. Nothing she did or said was sweet.
But when Hugues came to check on things, she turned into a lamb and turned innocent eyes toward him, while the people she’d been brutalizing stood and stared at her in disbelief. Heloise couldn’t imagine it of her father, but he fell for it like a ton of bricks and melted in a puddle at her feet. Heloise had never seen anyone do that to him, and she was shocked. He looked bewitched when he left the room.
“Did you see that?” Heloise whispered to Jan. “He was completely gaga. He believes all that stuff she says to him.” Heloise was horrified.
“It’s going to be a long three months till Sally comes back,” Jan said sadly. Her boss seemed to be falling for the woman with the blond, blue-eyed looks of an angel and the behavior of a storm trooper.
Hilary turned her attention to Heloise then, after her father left the ballroom, and asked what she was doing there.
“Just visiting,” Heloise said politely. This was her fiefdom, not Hilary’s, and she wasn’t going to be chased off, no matter how tough she was.
“We don’t want uninvited guests at a wedding, do we?” she said pointedly to Heloise, who was wearing a new dress for the occasion. It was a dark green velvet skirt with a velvet top, with a white lace collar and shiny flat black pumps and white tights. She looked like an ad for what girls her age should look like, but Hilary clearly didn’t find it endearing. She told her to leave the ballroom before the wedding. Heloise flatly said she wouldn’t, and that she had attended all the weddings at the hotel since she was six. There was a long pause between the two, and Hilary nodded.
Hilary had decided not to tackle Heloise just yet. She let her stay on the fringes of the wedding and watched her like a hawk, waiting for her to do something wrong. When Heloise ordered a Coca-Cola from a passing waiter, Hilary canceled it immediately and reminded Heloise that she was not a guest. But this was Heloise’s world, not hers, and things were done differently here. The owner’s daughter could do no wrong; they had all watched her grow up. Hilary clearly didn’t find her charming, and her only interest was in Hugues.
“You don’t order drinks here,” she told Heloise firmly. “If you want to see the bride, that’s fine. But if you want to eat or drink, go upstairs to your own apartment. And don’t dance or talk to the guests.” Her tone was harsh and her blue eyes ice cold, as the other employees watched her.
“I always talk to the guests,” Heloise said firmly, without flinching. She was not going to be run off by a stranger. This was her home. “I represent my father here,” she said with a tone that was braver than she felt. Hilary was scary.
“And I’m responsible for this wedding. You’re not an invited guest, and I’m sure your father would agree.”
Heloise wasn’t sure he wouldn’t, so she didn’t press the point. But two waiters who had heard the exchange went out to the kitchen and told the head chef that there was trouble in River City, and the new catering manager wouldn’t let the boss’s daughter order a Coke.
“She won’t get far with that.” The cook laughed and rolled her eyes. They all agreed that Hilary wouldn’t last three months if she was mean to Heloise. Her father wouldn’t tolerate that.
The wedding went off perfectly. Heloise watched it for a long time and left before they cut the cake, which was unusual for her, but she felt unwelcome after what Hilary had said and could feel her eyes on her all the time. Heloise went upstairs and watched a movie, then came back downstairs after the wedding was over and walked into her father’s office to say hi. She almost fell over in astonishment when she saw Hilary sitting there with her angel face on, laughing as Hugues poured them each a glass of champagne. Cristal, their best.
“What’s she doing here?” Heloise blurted out as Hilary turned and gave her a victorious look.
“We’re talking about the next few weddings, to bring Hilary up to speed,” he said calmly, looking unconcerned.
It amused him that whenever he wanted a private moment, his daughter never failed to show up. And he didn’t know why, but he could sense the tension between the temporary catering manager and his daughter. It made no sense. He had invited Hilary to his office for a drink after the wedding. She had done a good job, said she wanted to talk to him, and he wanted to put her at ease. And she was a lovely-looking young woman. There was no harm in sharing a glass of champagne.
“Why don’t you go upstairs, Heloise?” he suggested. “I’ll be up in time for dinner.” It was clear he wanted to be alone with Hilary. Heloise looked upset when she left the room and went back to their apartment.
“She’s very possessive of you, and her turf,” Hilary commented with an innocent smile, and he looked at her ruefully and nodded.
“She’s been the woman in my life since she was four, almost all her life, as she remembers it. She likes having me to herself.” He smiled apologetically.
“In a few years she’ll be gone,” Hilary said thoughtfully, “and you’ll wind up alone.” She sounded sympathetic. “You can’t let her run your life. She’s just a little girl.” And Hilary was a big girl who knew a golden opportunity when she saw it and planned to make the most of it while she was there. She would have liked nothing better than to become the girlfriend, or better yet the wife, of the owner of the hotel. She had read Hugues’s bios in hotel magazines for years. The temporary job at the Vendome was her dream, and so was he. She saw this as a long- term opportunity and had pounced on it when the agency offered to send her there. She had done her homework, and her plan was to seduce Hugues Martin, and she wasn’t going to let a precocious twelve-year-old stand in her way.
They drank half the bottle of champagne together, and after that Hugues went to his apartment upstairs. He was attracted to Hilary, but it was against his better judgment to get involved with an employee. She was very seductive, and he told himself that at least she was a temp. Maybe he could go out with her after she left. He was very attracted to her; and Hilary was making the most of it and flirting with him.
When he got to the apartment, Heloise was watching a movie on TV, looking unhappy. She hardly spoke at dinner, and most of Hugues’s efforts to engage her in conversation went ignored, until she finally turned to him, with tears in her eyes.
“That woman is after you, Papa. She’s a liar, and she’s mean to everyone. She yelled at Jan and made her cry.”
“She gets good results,” he defended Hilary quietly. “We’ve never had a wedding as pretty. Everything went smoothly today. She runs a tight ship. And she’s not after me,” he reassured her. It was more the reverse. He was after her. “You have nothing to worry about. You’re the only woman in my life.” He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, and Heloise looked at him cautiously, wanting it to be true forever.
“Okay, I’m sorry,” she said, mollified, and they chatted till the end of dinner. But she hated Hilary more than ever. She could sense that she was after Hugues. And there was something insincere about her, although Heloise didn’t know what it was.
For the next several weeks Hilary made enemies among the employees and put all her energy into charming Hugues. She was on a mission. She dropped by his office, used every excuse to talk to him, and constantly asked his advice about how “things were done at the Vendome.” It was a little oppressive, although he didn’t seem to mind it, and it flattered him, and Jennifer noticed it too. Everyone did. By the time she’d been there a month, it was clear that she was determined to land the owner of the hotel, at the altar if possible, or at least in bed. She asked him to show up at every wedding, flirted with him shamelessly, and Hugues remained proper and discreet, but they could see he was attracted to her, and Jennifer caught them kissing once in his office. She’d never seen him do that
